Introduction

Last night I read Liber Trigrammaton aloud to my husband, and it touched me right into my heart. I remember I have read it many years ago but then it didn’t leave such an impression at all. One of the task as a Practicus is learning this book by heart and recite this. Even though it might not been such a hard task as it is only 4 pages of text. For me it is more than that I want to grasp the inner meaning of the text.

A brief translation of the first four sentences

Here is nothing under its three forms. It is not, yet informeth all things.

Bovendien was de zuiverheid gescheiden bij Kracht, de macht van de wereldleider.

Thoughts

For example the word informeth can simple mean to inform but when I read the text last night, it enflamed me. So instead I used the Dutch word inspireert/ bezield, those words mean inspire and there is no English word for bezielen. It comes back as inspire but bezielen means much more than that. Bezielen feels as enflame yourself in prayer. What happens when you preform a ritual the right way. It lifts you up.

The word Demiurge has a lot of different meanings. In the Platonic world it is an artisan-like figure. The one that build worlds, the dictionary says world leader. So I used that word. Some it is just based on feeling in order to have better grasp as what the text means in my opinion.

Introduction

Many of us struggle with the instructions in Part 1: Mysticism. If you have done them for many years they are very easy to understand but if you are at the beginning of the path they are rather difficult to read.

Asana

Asana means posture. The best thing a student can do is find a posture that is comfortable enough to learn to sit in. When I first learned to meditatie my teacher didn’t call it meditation, he called it sitting.

Sit at ease.

And that is exactly what it is. To learn to calm the body by sitting on a cushion your muscles not to rigid and not allowing them to slack as well.

When you enter that in-between state, your body is relaxed and yet alert. It can take months to develop this stage, just be patient.

Posture

There are many books written on all kinds of postures. A.Crowley gives suggestions for positions in Liber E, but if you want to keep things simple use the cross legged position or just sit on a chair. There are a few things to keep in mind when you want to sit in the cross legged position or sit on a chair.

Sitting on a chair with back straight and the feet on the ground. Hands on the knees palms down. Your back has a natural curve so you want to keep it. Or sit cross legged on your cushion, keep the natural curve of your back.

To avoid a rupture or hernia, it is very important to watch the abdomen around the navel. You have to pull them slightly in. If your abdomen are very weak, I suggest you train them to make them stronger. In the beginning this feels very unpleasant but when you start Pranayama, you really need your strength because when doing Pranayama there will be excessive tension on your abdomen.

Begin with breathing in through the nose and slowly breathing out through the mouth. Do this for 3 times. Just be aware that you breathe in and out. You can have your eyes open or close. When you want to do it with your eyes open, gaze down on the floor and keep your head in a 45-degree angle. When you feel you get into that in-between stage, breath only in and out through your mouth. This gives the brain less oxygen and helps you to calm it down.

So now you have an idea how to start your practice in sitting. The first stage in learning to meditate.

Pranayama

Pranayama comes from a Sanskrit word and can be translated as “extension of the prāṇa (breath or life force)” or “breath control.” With this technique you have to be very careful. Make sure you are very comfortable in your chosen posture and that your abdomen are strong. You do not need to be ripped or anything but you have to be able to pull your belly slightly in to avoid to much pressure. In the beginning this feels very unpleasant but you need to be aware of it. Practice this first before you continue.

There are many different Pranayama techniques. Find the one that works for you. You have single nostril breath, Four-Fold breath etc. There are many websites or clips on youtube to give you an idea where and how to start.

The Four-Fold breath is a good practice for the beginner, it helps to bring focus, makes you more calm and helps you to ground.

When you feel If any discomfort or lightheadedness, stop immediately and return to normal breathing. Never force or restrict your breath. Don’t compromise the quality of the breath. Check with your doc when you suffer from high blood pressure if you are able to use Pranayama. Just be patience.

Dharana

This is very wonderful practice to tame our monkey mind. The monkey mind is the mind that jumps up and down and is racing around in circles. Specially after a long stress full day at work, the mind is almost in toddler tantrum state. Dharana means focus on a single point, in other words gaze upon an object and take it.

Focus on an object, a statue, an object you found on your hicks in nature. It is all up to you!

Do not stare obsessively, just be gentle and let your eyes take in the object, and understand that it will support your practice. The goal is to ease your monkey mind. Of course you can take this technique much further. As it is written in A.Crowley’s work Mysticism but by learning to use it and integrate this into your meditation, it will help you to be come more detached and less judgmental towards your own mind, towards occurrences in your daily life and also towards other people. It will help you to become more neutral and less carried away with events that happen at work, when in traffic or in the supermarket.

When or where does the meditation starts?

The different points I mentioned in my article are all part of the same practice. When you are able to sit comfortable and at ease, not only your body will relax but also your mind will settle. It is the same when you stamp into a puddle, the dirt comes up and the water gets murky, when you wait the dirty sinks to the bottom of the puddle and the water gets clear. When this happens to your body and mind, you will experience the first glimpses of meditation.

You can meditate anywhere, on the beach, subway on a bench in the park.

That is the reason why you use techniques as Pranayama or Dharana. It helps you to get into that meditative state of mind. To be able to learn those techniques proper, you can isolate these techniques first so you get a better grasp, then you integrate them back into your practice.

What I do is when I feel that my mind starts to wonder, I start with Dharana, I let my eyes gaze upon an object that I have in my temple, when I still feel my mind is a monkey I do some Pranayama. It depends on how my mind behaves and I tune in on what the mind needs at that moment.

Well I hope that is helps you to go and experiment with your first steps in meditation!

Introduction

I wrote this article for my A.’.A.’. students to help them to get a better grasp on how to keep a diary. In Thelema the magickal diary holds a very special place, in fact you could say it is the heart of the system and therefor it also holds the heart of the student. A Magickal diary keeps track of habits, it keeps track of all the magickal activities and it is also a place to write down thoughts or observations.

A diary in the form of a booklet

The Magickal Diary

A diary is so much more than keeping a log where you write in dates and your practice. A diary is the heart and soul of your work. It is one of the most important magickal tools you can own as a student on the path. The value of a magickal diary lies in the fact that it becomes your magickal memory over time. If you want understand your mind you have to dig deep. We all have hidden obstacles and when they come to the surface we as students on the path have to be ready.

Old Habits

Most of us will come across old habits, the saying ‘old habits die hard’, well this one is very true! As we progress on the path the ‘bad’ habits can become subtler and not always easy to spot. This is where the diary comes in. I, myself have two diaries, my digital day to day one, and a blanc book that I take with me on my travels, because there are times that I just not want to take my laptop with me but be off the grid and get more in touch with nature and my magickal work. Last summer, when I was on a holiday, I brought my travel dairy with me and started to read in it. I came across a dream, that I forgot I had, reading it again in my diary brought a couple of personal things in to a broader perspective and that was very helpful for me.

Old habits die hard!

Aleister Crowley’s novel Diary of a drug fiend had a huge impact on me when I read it many years ago. It is excellent example not only on the theory behind the Magickal diary but also for how to guide fellow students on the AA path.

Methods of science

The methods of our order are those of science and the aims are those of religion. ‘Every man and every woman is a star’, as it is stated in the Book of the Law. If we want to find our own ‘Star’ and what it means to us on our magickal journey, the magickal diary is the key element.

Content of your diary

Here are some suggestions of things that you can write down in your magickal diary.

Date and year

The weather

The moon cycle (full moon, new moon etc.)

Dreams

Practice

Books you read or reading

Special events

Emotional wellbeing

Thoughts you have about things in life

I will explain a few of these suggestions, to give you a better understanding.

Dreams

For dreams you can also have a small blanc book next to your bed with a flashlight and pencil. Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night out of a dream, this makes it very easy to write down and go back to sleep.

Practice

Write down how long you meditated for example. I have really see my own progress grow over time. More than twenties years ago I started with three minutes meditations in the Dragon position. And that felt like three hours to me. Now, twenties years later, I rather sit in the tailor’s pose for about twenty minutes till one hour a day. My mind is at ease during my meditations. If I look into diaries I can really see so much change over the years. That to me is the benefit of that magickal diary.

To be able to see our own ripples

So, make a list in your magickal diary of all the practices you do in the morning or evening and write down what you felt or experienced. What to do when you experience nothing? Well, write that down, we all go to ‘dry’ periods from time to time. Same goes for not doing any practical work, write it down in your magickal diary. It can help you to understand your won patterns. What I discovered for example in all those years is that my menstrual cycle can be a hiccup, when I found that out, I changed some of my practices so instead to see it as an obstacle, I made it beneficial for my magickal progress.

Books or movies

It can be a good idea to write down what books you are studying and your thoughts about what you have read, what inspired you for example. Or movies that inspired you. Movies can have a huge effect on you. I remember when I fist saw the Matrix, it was mind blowing. But also the documentary: Wild wild country, about Osho. So can books have an effect as well. A sentence or a chapter can give you insight, or it gives words to something you feel or think. I had it with the word ‘imaginazione’. After reading about it I had a deep and intense talk with my husband about it and he wrote an article on his blog about it. You can find his article it here: Words and phrases

Special events

This can mean many things, a magickal retreat, a special ritual like an Equinox. Write about these as detailed as possible. Or even an experiment you did with herbs.

Emotional wellbeing

Write about your emotions, when you are moved by something or angry, write down what happened, the deeper you go the better you will understand what is going on in your mind and soul. This is something we tend to forget but it is very interesting to see what trigger us on a day to day basis.

All kinds of emotions

It can also help you when you do meditations, like mindfulness. Does it really help you to feel more present and in the moment. Getting less involved in all kinds of stimulations.

Conclusion

I hope this document gives you some inspiration on how to keep a Magickal Diary. It is a lot of work I am fully aware of that. You write your magickal diary for yourself but it will not only benefit you but also your tutor who reads your magickal diary from time to time and gives you feedback on the work you do. Your future students benefit from your labor of love as well. The goal is to understand the ‘True Will’, aiming and direct it towards the ‘Knowledge and Conversation’ with your ‘Holy Guardian Angel,’ your writings will never be in vane keep that in mind when you are stuck in your work. Go back, read, and act!

Introduction

This piece is about my own observations of the Zelator Grade. The Zelator’s statement in Libber 185 reads: He (she) may at any moment withdraw from his (her) association with the A .’.A.’. simply notifying the Practicus who introduced him (her). Yet let him (her) remember that being entered thus far on the Path, he (she) cannot escape it….

The first big step

You could say that the grade of the Zelator is the first big step into the Order of the A .’.A.’., the student enters into the second order. This is where the real work begins. Everything that the Zelator has learned in the other grades are the basics that are getting deepen in this second state. The work you need to do as a Zelator is very clear and to the point for example Pranayama and Asana but also recovering past live memories. Liber Thisharb for example, even though it is an instruction for a higher grade, is something a Zelator can get inspiration from to find a way to uncover past live memories. Of course there are also other methods a Zelator can use to her/his own advantage.

The road of past memories

Past live memories are indeed interesting to observe. It can give the Zelator a very clear idea about her/his own hiccups. One of the things I found out for myself was that teaching/guiding others on the path became important. What I discovered during a ritual to uncover past live memories was that, I made a promise to teach/guide others on the path but in that live I never got the chance to for fill that important task. It came back to me in this life again and again. At first, I hesitated by the idea to go back into past live memories to get a better understanding about myself and why I love teaching/guiding others so much, because you never know what can of worms you open, but when I did a ritual to uncover past live memories it became clear why I love to teach/guide others so much. It left me in some kind of ‘shock’ for days and it took me many years to find the right path and the right way to accomplish this task. From this day on it is something that means a lot to me. I am glad I opened that ‘can of worms‘ so to speak even though it was very scary.

For me this grade is about the Magickal and Spiritual foundation to be able to travel to Tiphareth and do my Abramelin work and accomplish the knowledge and conversation of the HGA.

On the tree of life

The Zelator is attributed to Yesod. The sphere of the Moon. Moon energy can be very tricky, it is sexual, deceiving but also reflective and can be delusional at times.

The tree of life

What I do love about this Grade is the fact the two paths that intersect with this sphere are 31 and 30, Shin and Resh both lead up to Hod, the next step so to speak, in other words the hidden divine fire breath. Even though this isn’t an easy one, coming from Malkuth, in my view a very heavy earth energy, working is Yesod literally gave me a breath of fresh air. This grade gives me so much more inspiration, balance, I feel the connection with the order and the great white brotherhood so much stronger. It is like I am seeing things from a new and fresh perspective.

I also read in Magick book 4 and I quote: The spirits of the Gods, which broods upon the Formless Void in the Beginning, being by shape a triple tongue of flame, and by meaning a tooth, wich is the only part of the secret and solid foundation of Man that is manifested normally. Teeth serve him to fight, to crush, to cut, to rend….Teeth are displayed when our Secret Self, our subconscious Ego, whose Magical image is our individually expressed in mental and bodily form- our HGA- comes forth and declares our True Will to our fellows, whether to snarl or to sneer, to smile or to laugh. It gave me literally gave me goose pimples. I read this part of the book many, many moons ago but now it gave me a wake-up-moment. Working with Shin, the tooth, to unveil myself and get rid of all the Karma or at least as much as possible to complete the work is no idle idea. It means to develop a form of rigor to be able to yield the ‘dagger’ and later on the sword.

Conclusion

The path Zelator goes from Yeshod to Hod and then Netzach and finally Tiphareth and the Zelator can use the sacred fire breath to help her/him to complete the tasks of the second order. The danger however of this grade, at least in my opinion, can be that a Zelator becomes moon sick and goes from Yesod to Tipareth through the path of Samekh and declares her/himself an Adeptus Minor. Yesod is the lesser part of Binah, the great sea and even though a Zelator can hear the call of the Sea, it is still better to go through all the steps and then unite yourself with your HGA.

Introduction

This article is about Magick, specifically Magick in action. In June 2016 I finished my degree in teaching. It took two years of my life but I made it. At that time around June 2016, my condition was very poor, my body out of shape and my energy level very low. My first goal was to get back into shape again. So that was what I did and still doing. And it works wonders, I have not been ill in more then a year and it also payed off in my magickal work. I might write something about that in the near future, as I will not go into dept about that process for now. In the beginning of december 2017 I noticed I was very unhappy with my job, not the content of my job but the team I was working in. It gave a lot of stress and I didn’t feel very welcome there. So, I started an experiment.

The experiment

For my experiment I used an outline that I learned at the BOTA many years ago, but I tweaked it to my liking and need. The most important thing for me was to get more time for my Magickal work. The deeper one gets into the A.’.A.’. the intenser the work gets. One of the most important goal’s in the A.’.A.’. is to make contact with your HGA and have a conversation with this Angel or two. With all the mundane work I was doing I knew it would take me way to much time. So I pondered my mind on what to do.

The first thing I did was meditate on it, preformed some basic rituals like Star Ruby, ‘contacted’ my HGA and the great white brotherhood for help, for me it was important that is was really about to be able to preform the Great work and nothing else. Then I sat down to write down my goal.

The second thing I did was: I used a very associative way of writing. I took a big piece of paper and wrote down everything I could imagine. I made my goal larger then life and at least that is how it felt for me at the time. My goal (in summary) was to find a new job, less hours, a raise, close to home, something more experimental, for an extend period of time or even a permanent contract within the company I was already working or an other company that I had worked before.

The third thing I did was to fold the piece of paper and put it somewhere on my bookshelves to ‘forget’ it so to speak. It is very important once you have set it all up to not be thinking about it all the time but just observe the ‘Linga Verdi’. Pay attention to signs and tune into them.

So there you go I set it all in motion.

The result

The first result I had was that my contract at team I didn’t liked at all got extended. It was at that moment just thrown in my lap, at least that is how the Dutch expression goes. So I gave it some thought. It was in the middle of Dec not the best time to find something else, it was full time, same courses I had all ready given, so less time to prepare. And for some reason it felt OK. I knew it was the best option out of all the options I had at that moment. So I decided to take it.

The second result and this why I write this article in the first place was very interesting. At the end of May 2018 my manger told me that contract wouldn’t get an extension. I had mixed feelings about it. I was happy that I didn’t had to stay in that team that I didn’t like and the way they are working there, on the other hand I felt a bit offended. I wasn’t good enough? I took a week to review the news and to make up my mind. At first I didn’t act but on 13th of June I took action. I wrote 3 cover letters, one open letter and two on vacancies. By the 18th of June I had 3 reactions. And 20th of June I had two interviews, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The interview I had in the afternoon was so positive that I got hired during that interview and you might have guessed it. This job is at the same company I am working for. It is an experiment, a great team of people that are very devoted to the work. It is at least for 3 years, I am getting a raise, that means I go to an other ‘scale’ as they call it. I have to do some work for it but that is fine. It is less hours. In other words it has almost anything I wished for back in December 2017 and even more.

Conclusion

I only recently gave my December working some thoughts. The interesting part for me was that I had forgotten the Magick work. It came back to me last Wednesday, I had my work conditions meeting, it was a very inspiring talk. Usually they can be a bit on the boring side but we started talking about the project and all of us got even more excited. When I stepped into my car and drove back to my ‘old’ workplace I realized what just happend and what had happend was pure Magick in my view!

Introduction

For all of you that struggle on the path or experience any form of resistance/aversion towards the practices, consider reading or doing Liber YOD Sub Figura DCCCXXXI. Liber YOD deals with drawing all things ‘to a point’ and the consciousness that can be scattered all around can be melted in to one.

The first method

The first method AC describes is about banishing, banish the 7 Planets, the 12 signs of the zodiac after this banish the whole tree of life. Basically you banish all that can influence you as a Magician. When you have done that just be in your circle and observe. It is almost like unplugging your own ‘Matrix’ and rebuild it again. Hitting the reset button and format the hard drive.

The second method

The second method is a from of what the Buddhists call Chöd, a method that means ‘cutting through the ego’. And it also relate to a form of ‘analytic meditation’. It helps the Magician to learn not to take everything so personal. For example if you find it hard to learn a chapter or to do any form practice. The mind takes over with thoughts like: ‘I will do it tomorrow’ or ‘I do not have the time for it’ or ‘The neighbors make to much noise’ or ‘I am to sick’. Ask yourself are these thoughts helpful?

The third method

The third method is to ‘overload’ the system first and then to withdraw completely from all these stimulations. It is learning to still the Ruach part of the mind. To learn to be more reflective, so to become less of a jumping monkey.
For the second half do pranayama, the focus is on the Ajna chakra, the idea is that the Ajna chakra is breathing. The next exercise is study your movements, the Magician can also apply walking meditations. The next method is the control of thoughts instead “I am cold” gradually transfer it to “I am aware of a sensation of cold”.

Conclusion

It is not a proces for just a rainy Sunday but something that you can apply in your daily practice. It helps the Magian to overcome the ‘Ruach’ part of the ‘Ego’ and to give the mind some room to overcome obstacles.

Also have a look at Liber HHH, part II AAA. These loosen the swathings of the corpse; these inbind the feet of Osiris so that the flaming God may rage through the firmament with his fantastic spear. -Liber LAPIDIS LAZULI VII:3